


An Introduction

by Scrawlers



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-16 17:56:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11257983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrawlers/pseuds/Scrawlers
Summary: On her first day as a part-time assistant at the Lumiose Lab, Cosette meets her new coworker . . . and a skiddo named Skidoodle.





	An Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> I’m really unclear on exactly how old Cosette is supposed to be. The fact that we barely see her—and that we barely get anything out of her in terms of interaction with other characters or personality or anything—doesn’t help matters. With that said, I’ve decided to go with the “she has a baby face and is therefore older than she looks” approach, without making her so much older that it’s unbelievable. That being the case, I imagine her to be about nineteen in canon, which makes her about fifteen here. Alan is eleven (though about a month shy of his twelfth birthday), Sophie is 24/25, and Sycamore is 31.

“Here we are!” Sophie said cheerfully, and Cosette smoothed down her skirt for the fifteenth time as Sophie opened the door to the Lumiose Pokémon Lab. “Ready to start your first day?”

“Yep. I mean, yes!” Cosette said, and she swallowed a little over the squeak in her voice as she smoothed the back of her skirt down, too. She didn’t know if it was wrinkled or not, given that she didn’t have eyes in the back of her head, but it never hurt to be sure. “Yes, I’m ready.”

Sophie smiled, and there was laughter in her voice as she said, “I told you yesterday, you don’t have to worry so much. You’re going to fit in great here, I promise.”

Cosette smiled back, or at least, she tried to. It took effort. “I just want to make a good impression.”

“You will,” Sophie said, and she put her hand on Cosette’s shoulder and squeezed it gently. “I’m sure of it.”

Cosette nodded, for her tongue felt too stuck to the roof of her mouth for her to say anything more, and—seeming to take her nod as a show of confidence—Sophie turned and stepped over the threshold proper, leading the way into the lab’s foyer. This was not Cosette’s first time visiting the lab—she had been here just the week before for her interview—but it was her first time stepping over the threshold as an actual (part-time) employee, as one of Professor Sycamore’s assistants, as someone who had an actual job with a rate of pay and expectations and responsibilities. Thinking about it only made her tongue feel even thicker in her mouth, and made her limbs feel a little more rubbery, and so rather than step casually over the threshold like Sophie had, Cosette jumped over it in order to make sure she made it through. Nothing happened when she did (not that she had expected it to), but she still breathed a tiny sigh of relief the moment she was through the door. She had made it. She was in the lab. That was step one. She wasn’t sure what step two was, other than “do a good job and don’t mess up on the first day,” but at least she had managed step one.

“You can shut the door,” Sophie said, “but don’t lock it. It isn’t unusual for us to have visitors throughout the day, and depending on where we are or what we’re doing, sometimes it can be hard to hear if someone’s there even if they ring the doorbell.”

Cosette pivoted on the ball of her foot to shut the door, but her hand caught it in the same motion, and with more strength than she had intended she pushed it shut with a sharp _snap_. She winced at how loud it was. Was it too loud? Had she shut the door too hard? Had she slammed it by accident?

If she had—or even if she hadn’t—Sophie didn’t seem bothered. Instead, when Cosette looked back, she found that Sophie was smiling. “All right, let’s see about getting you situated. Professor Sycamore will probably want you to complete some new hire paperwork before anything else. That’s how it was when I was first hired on, anyway.”

Cosette gripped the strap of her purse in a tight fist. “Yes. I’m ready.”

“I know,” Sophie said, and while Cosette knew that Sophie was laughing _with_ her, she wished Sophie would laugh a little less, just this once. Sophie’s laughter, however kind, really did nothing to ease her anxiety. But if Sophie noticed, she didn’t show it. Instead, she turned away from Cosette and called out to the lab at large, “Professor Sycamore?”

There was no response. From elsewhere in the lab Cosette could hear claws skittering around tile, or a door opening and closing. She wasn’t sure if that was normal or not, but figured it must be. This was a lab, after all. There was bound to be activity all over the place, and she had heard enough stories from Sophie to know that pokémon were everywhere here, all the time. It was part of the reason why Cosette had set all her hopes on the job to begin with.

“Hm, he must be absorbed in work again,” Sophie said, and she heaved an exaggerated, but good-natured, sigh. “He gets this way sometimes—him and Alan both. Get them focused on a task and they won’t hear it if the lab burns down around them. Tell you what: You take a look around and get acquainted, and I’ll see about finding Professor Sycamore so he can get your paperwork together.”

“By myself?” Cosette said, and she twisted the strap of her bag in both hands, trying dutifully to ignore how sweaty her palms felt all of a sudden. “Is it okay for me to wander around? I mean—”

“You’re an employee here now. Even though you’re only part-time, you’ll be here more often than you realize,” Sophie said. “It’s important for you to get acquainted with the layout, and I promise Professor Sycamore won’t mind. I actually think he would encourage it.”

“Well . . . okay. If you say so,” Cosette said.

Sophie nodded, and patted her shoulder. “I do. Trust me, you’ll be fine. Now, you get acquainted, and I’m going to go find Professor Sycamore.”

With that, Sophie turned and headed off into a room to the right (once again calling for Professor Sycamore as she went), leaving Cosette alone. Cosette stood still for a moment, waffling over which way she should go, but finally—in the interest of not trailing after Sophie after Sophie had encouraged her to explore on her own—she started down the hallway just in front of her, squeezing the strap of her bag in both hands.

The lab was, all things considered, warm and inviting. The hallway opened into an area with a kitchen and dining room (a living room just beyond), and in a way, Cosette thought, it felt rather homely. She didn’t see any pokémon as she made her way through, nor did she see anyone else. She didn’t know if Professor Sycamore had other guests in the lab at the moment, but she did know that he had another full-time assistant—Alan, Sophie had said his name was. He was a few years younger than Cosette, apparently, and Sophie had told her that he was quiet, but nice. Cosette hoped that was the case, especially if she happened to stumble upon him in the midst of her wandering. The last thing she wanted to do was make a workplace enemy or rival on her very first day (or any day, really, but especially her very first).

The kitchen area had glass doors in the back that, from what she could see through them, led to a garden. Where there was a garden, there were pokémon, she felt, and while she felt nervous at the prospect of meeting with Professor Sycamore again (he had been nothing but kind during her interview, but he was her _boss_ now, and no matter how many times Sophie told her that he was a very friendly and understanding boss to work with, this was Cosette’s first-ever job, and as little as she wanted to admit it, that was intimidating), and felt equally as nervous about meeting her brand new coworker Alan, she liked pokémon. Pokémon she could handle. So with a quiet hope in the back of her mind that it was okay for her to do so, Cosette jammed down on the door handle and pushed the back door open so that she could step out into the garden.

The first thing Cosette noticed upon stepping out into the garden was how _noisy_ it was, at least in comparison to the quiet of the lab inside. The moment she stepped over the threshold she could hear the buzzing of combee (a wonderful sound—bees were the best), the rustle of leaves and grass, and barks coming from somewhere beyond the trees that she couldn’t see. She smiled, and clasped her hands behind her back as she started across the lawn. There was a pond, and ripples forming across the surface from where water pokémon were probably swimming underneath (and she thought she saw a poliwag tail dip below the surface just before she looked). Just ahead of her she thought she could see some zigzagoon skirting around the tree trunks, and as she listened she thought she heard the distinctive chirping of fletch—

Something hard and heavy slammed into her legs from behind, and Cosette yelped as she was thrown forward. She hit the ground hard enough to tumble, the strap of her bag getting twisted around her in the process, and as she spat out the hair and grass that got her in mouth as a result of her fall, she heard a boy’s voice carry out from across the yard.

“Hey! _No_! Don’t do that!”

“Oww . . . sorry?” Cosette said, though she didn’t know what she was sorry for, or what she wasn’t supposed to be doing. She pushed herself up into a sitting position so that she could see what had hit her, but when she finally looked back toward the lab, she saw two things:

One, there was a skiddo staring her down, even as it, too, turned to look back at the boy who had shouted.

Two, there was a boy there, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was glaring at the skiddo, who finally gave him its full attention as he neared.

“We’ve talked about this. What have we said about headbutting people?” the boy said, and the skiddo whined a little, shrinking back. “We said not to do that, didn’t we? The Professor and I both told you not to headbutt people.”

The skiddo whined again, a little louder this time, and turned back around to look at Cosette. The moment their eyes met, the skiddo started to growl, and Cosette—wondering just what she could have done to make this skiddo so aggressive toward her—shrank back a little.

But the boy wasn’t having any of that. He snapped his fingers once, and the skiddo looked back to him. “No,” the boy said firmly. “Stop that. Headbutting people isn’t nice. That’s not how you make friends.”

The skiddo grunted, the sound caught somewhere between a whine and a growl.

The boy raised his eyebrows. “Do I need to go get Gabby?”

Cosette didn’t know who ‘Gabby’ was, but that threat seemed to be enough. The skiddo instantly pulled back, and rapidly shook its head. The boy smiled a little, satisfied.

“That’s what I thought,” he said. “Now tell her you’re sorry.”

The skiddo looked back at Cosette, the aggression finally gone from its expression, replaced instead by a look of admonishment. It gave a low cry, and while Cosette didn’t speak skiddo, she still understood well enough what it meant. She gave it a shaky smile.

“Apology accepted,” she said.

“Good,” the boy said, and Cosette couldn’t tell if he was speaking to her or the skiddo. In the next moment, however, he crouched down and patted the skiddo on the head, smoothing its fur before he scratched beneath its jaw. The skiddo perked up, happily rubbing against his palm. “Now go play, and be good. No more headbutting others, okay?”

The skiddo gave a happy cry of agreement before bounding off toward the trees. The boy watched it go for a moment before he looked back at Cosette, who realized belatedly that she was still sitting on the grass.

“Are you okay?” the boy asked.

“Um, yes. Yes, I’m fine.” Cosette pushed herself to her feet, and once she was standing, straightened her bag and smoothed her skirt down again. There were a few errant blades of grass on it, maybe some dirt—not exactly as clean and pressed as she wanted it to be for her first day, but she supposed that being headbutted by a skiddo would excuse that. She hoped it would, anyway.

“That’s good,” the boy said, and he sounded relieved. “Sorry about that. That skiddo isn’t good with strangers. We’re working on it with him, but when someone shows up unexpectedly it can still set him off.”

“It’s okay,” Cosette said again, though she had wished she had known about the . . . territorial, she supposed? Skiddo beforehand. If nothing else, it would have been nice for Sophie to give her a heads-up. “No harm done.”

The boy smiled, small but grateful.

Now that she was no longer being harassed by a skiddo, Cosette was finally able to get a good look at the boy standing in the yard with her. He was shorter than she was, but only by a couple inches; he had the awkward look of someone either just starting, or perhaps caught in the middle of, a growth spurt. His hair was black and in a messy disarray that suggested either “windswept” or “lack of a hairbrush” (but that Cosette supposed could have also been “genetics”). His clothes were mostly casual (baggy jeans, red and white chucks, and a light orange v-neck shirt), with the one, glaring exception of his long white lab coat. Although it had an orange-lined hood, that coat was enough to make Cosette’s eyes widen in realization.

“You’re Alan, aren’t you?” she asked.

The boy—Alan—nodded once, and slipped his hands into the pocket of his lab coat. “And you’re Cosette, right?” he asked. “The new assistant the Professor hired. He said you were starting today.”

“Ah, um—yes, I am.” Cosette laughed, more out of nerves than anything, and awkwardly lifted one hand as if to shake his before she pulled it back. Was that appropriate in this situation, or would it make things even more awkward. “It’s nice to meet you!”

Alan smiled in return, and Cosette felt the nerves in her chest loosen. “Likewise.”

It was a good start, Cosette thought—she was off to a good start, the skiddo incident aside. But Sophie had not been exaggerating when she said Alan was quiet; the seconds ticked past, both of them standing a couple feet from each other and neither of them saying a word, and Cosette felt more awkward as each second ticked by. She was just about to say something—what, she didn’t know, but some sort of excuse to break the silence or perhaps leave the situation—when Alan did it for her.

“So, have you gotten started yet?” he asked. “Have you met with the Professor, or anything?”

“No,” Cosette said. “He wasn’t around when we—when Sophie and I got here. Sophie went to go find him, and told me to look around while she did.”

Alan nodded. He was still watching her, and while he really did seem like a nice enough person just as Sophie had said he was, his eyes were such a bright, piercing blue that it was a little unnerving. She almost felt as if he was staring _through_ her rather than _at_ her.

“Do you want me to show you around?” he asked after a moment. “I can take you around the garden while Sophie finds the Professor.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Cosette said hastily, and he blinked, as if unsure of what to make of her response. “I’m sure you’re busy, or were doing some kind of work before that skiddo attacked me—”

Alan shook his head. “No, Lizardon and I were just working with the fennekin kits. But they’re okay; they don’t need immediate attention right now, and I think Lizardon is still over with them anyway.”

Cosette didn’t know who ‘Lizardon’ was any more than she had known who ‘Gabby’ was (although she thought ‘lizardon’ was the Japanese name for charizard—did they have a charizard at the lab?), but there was something in what Alan said that caught her attention far more than that. “Fennekin kits?”

“Yeah. It’s mating season for delphox, so we just got a new litter of fennekin kits that we’re raising for new trainers. They only just hatched last week, so they’re still pretty small.” Alan turned halfway, and gestured toward a little cluster of trees on the other side of the yard. “Want to see?”

Cosette couldn’t stop the smile that split her cheeks, though even if she could have, she wouldn’t have wanted to. “Yes, absolutely!”

Alan grinned back, and gestured for her to follow. “Come on, this way.”

He led her across the yard, toward the trees on the other side. Though they were on the same side of the garden as the pond now, the trees provided a little forested patch near enough away from the water to be comfortable for fire-types. As they neared the trees Cosette could hear high-pitched squeaks and little barks, and once Alan led her to a tiny semi-circle of grass framed by trees, she saw no fewer than six or seven fennekin kits, all ambling around the grass.

She clapped her hands over her mouth to contain her own squeak, which was just as high as any the fennekin were making.

“Here they are,” Alan said, and he gestured toward the fennekin with both hands. The fennekin, for their part, ignored him; they seemed more focus on learning how to walk gracefully (a feat that they were all adorably failing at present), and learning how to bite each other’s tails without being noticed. But one pokémon in the little cluster of trees was not like the others, and that was a charmander who brightened considerably the moment they entered the area, crying out happily as it ran across the grass to Alan’s side. Alan grinned broadly—the biggest smile Cosette had seen from him yet—and squatted down on the grass to pat the charmander’s head. “Hey, Lizardon. Told you I’d be right back. Thanks for watching over the fennekin in the meantime.”

The charmander crooned happily, pushing his head up under Alan’s palm even more eagerly than the skiddo had earlier.

“Oh, that’s Lizardon?” Cosette asked, and both Alan and the charmander looked back at her. She laughed sheepishly. “I think I need to brush up on my Japanese. I thought lizardon was Japanese for charizard.”

“It is,” Alan said, and Cosette’s smile fell. “Lizardon’s his name, not his species.”

“Oh,” Cosette said. She hadn’t ever heard of a charmander named lizardon before, and in all honesty she thought it a bit weird, but she also supposed it wasn’t her place to say (and especially not on her first day, given how well they were getting on so far). Besides, there were plenty of trainers who never named their pokémon at all, so maybe it wasn’t _that_ strange in retrospect. “Is he yours, then? Or . . . ?”

“Yeah. I hatched him almost two years ago now.” Alan sat cross-legged on the grass, and Lizardon immediately clambered up into his lap, beaming. Alan smiled again, petting the top of his head. “We’ve been together ever since.”

Cosette sat down on the grass as well, mindful of her skirt as she did so, and extended her hand toward one of the fennekin kits. The kit in question sniffed her fingers before deciding it something better to do and walking off, but one of the others excitedly bounced over to her, its tail wagging furiously. Cosette beamed, and let the little baby crawl onto her lap.

“Are you a trainer?” she asked.

Alan shook his head. “No, not really. I have my License, but I only got it just in case I ever need it. I figured it couldn’t hurt to be Licensed.”

Cosette nodded. “Absolutely.”

“And Lizardon and I do practice and train sometimes, but . . .” Alan shrugged. “We’ve only ever had a real battle once, and it didn’t last very long. We aren’t planning to go on a journey or anything.”

He was vague enough so that Cosette couldn’t make out the details of what he was talking about, but something in the way Lizardon’s countenance fell when Alan talked about the battle, combined with how quiet Alan had gotten while talking about it, made her think that it probably didn’t end very well. She scratched the fennekin kit on her lap behind the ears, and pushed some cheer into her voice.

“Well, that’s all right. If you’re not going on a journey, that means you can keep working here, right? It seems lovely here, and I’m sure you learn a lot. You’ll probably learn just as much here as you would if you were traveling.”

Alan and Lizardon both looked back up at her, and the longer she rambled on, the more warm their smiles became again. By the end of it, Alan was grinning, his eyes bright.

“Yeah,” he said, “def—!”

His response was enthusiastic. That was a good thing, at least in the sense that Cosette found it easier to be around new people when they were happy rather than sad. But his response was so enthusiastic that the moment the word ‘yeah’ left his lips, his voice cracked spectacularly. It was enough to make him cut himself off in the middle of his next word, his eyes wide and his cheeks quickly tinting red, before he cringed. It almost looked like he was curling in on himself, or at least around Lizardon, who twisted around in Alan’s lap in order to pat him consolingly.

Cosette pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. She didn’t want to laugh at him—it was the last thing she wanted, really, but—

She knew, and had known ahead of time thanks to Sophie, that Alan was a few years younger than she was. But he had seemed so knowledgeable, and acted so mature for a kid his age, that Cosette had almost forgotten, thinking of him as closer to _her_ age instead. The way his voice had broken right then, though—the way it was still in the _process_ of breaking, apparently, thanks to the magical wonders of puberty—was a strong reminder of just how young he actually was. Cosette kept herself from laughing, but despite her best efforts she couldn’t stop herself from smiling.

Unfortunately, her smile was gone before she had a chance to say a single word to change the subject due to a large shadow falling over them. Cosette turned to look, and had only one second to register what was happening before a pair of large, dragonian feet touched down on the grass just inches from them. More out of reflex than anything Cosette yelped and scrambled back, dislodging the baby fennekin (who whined loudly at the sudden disruption), and stared up at the massive garchomp peering down at her.

Alan, on the other hand, was completely unfazed. He hadn’t so much as twitched, save to look up when the garchomp landed, and when their eyes met he said, “You don’t have to be scared. It’s just Gabby.”

“ _This_ is Gabby?” Cosette asked. The second the words left her mouth, she got the impression that she said something wrong. The garchomp stood up a bit straighter, her eyes a bit unfriendlier, a sound of displeasure rippling from her throat.

“Ah, yeah, but she doesn’t actually like it when anyone but me calls her that,” Alan said. “Sorry. Her full name is Gabrielle.”

“Oh.” Now that she no longer had a fennekin on her lap, and now that she had a garchomp staring her down, Cosette pushed herself to her feet. She bowed once, politely, and said, “I’m sorry for the mistake. It’s nice to meet you, Gabrielle.”

At once, the Gabrielle’s face split into a wide, happy smile, and while Cosette spoke about as much garchomp as she did skiddo, she thought the sounds Gabrielle was making now sounded pretty pleased. The sight and sound of Gabrielle’s happiness made a feeling of warmth flood through Cosette.

“I never knew a garchomp could smile like that,” she said.

“Of course they can,” Alan said. He had gotten to his feet when Cosette had, Lizardon now perched on his shoulder, and he reached up to scratch his fingers along Gabrielle’s neck. Gabrielle crooned delightedly, and leaned down so that he could scratch along her head instead. “And Gabby especially loves to smile. Isn’t that right, Gabby-girl?”

Gabrielle bobbed her head in a nod, which was enough to cause Alan to stumble back a step. Yet though he stumbled (and Lizardon clung to his hair for support), he didn’t seem put-off. On the contrary, he laughed, petting Gabrielle’s head with both hands in such a way that it almost looked more akin to cuddling than petting.

“Anyway,” he said after a moment, “why did you come find us? Is the Professor—?”

As if that was the cue, Professor Sycamore’s voice called out from across the yard, clear as anything despite how they couldn’t see him for the trees. “Alan? Cosette? Are you two out here?”

Alan smiled, satisfied. “Thought so. Thanks for letting us know, Gabby.”

Gabrielle nodded, still beaming as bright as the sun, before she turned and leaped off in the direction of the lab again. Alan looked back at Cosette and said, “We should probably go, too. You still have to get set up, right?”

“Right.” Cosette smoothed down her skirt (and she hadn’t even thought about wrinkles or grass stains the second time she had sat down—she hoped it wouldn’t be too messed up now), and gestured toward the wider part of the garden. “Lead the way.”

Alan looked bemused, and for a second, Cosette wondered if he was going to say something. But the moment passed in an instant; instead, he led the way as she had suggested, walking back out into the main part of the garden with Lizardon still riding comfortably on his shoulder. Cosette followed (resisting the urge to carry a fennekin kit with her as she did), and the moment they broke away from the trees she saw both Professor Sycamore and Gabrielle standing nearer to the lab. Professor Sycamore beamed as Alan and Cosette approached.

“Marvelous! I was hoping you two had found each other,” Professor Sycamore said, and Cosette smiled as best she could, trying to swallow past the thick feeling in her throat. This was it. The moment of truth. She still hadn’t figured out step two (beyond “don’t mess up”), but it was now or never. “Has everything been going all right?”

“Yeah,” Alan said, “except for Skidoodle headbutting her the second she stepped into the garden earlier.”

The smile fell from Professor Sycamore’s face. “Again?” he said, dismayed.

Alan nodded, and Cosette wondered just how many people the skiddo had headbutted in the past. Given Professor Sycamore’s reaction and Alan’s scolding earlier, she could only assume the answer was ‘a lot.’

Professor Sycamore sighed, and looked at her with an apologetic expression. “I’m terribly sorry about that, Cosette. That skiddo isn’t comfortable around strangers. We’ve been attempting to work with him on it, but progress is slow. It doesn’t help that he gets defensive the moment he sees anyone new.”

“It’s okay. Really, it didn’t hurt that much,” Cosette said, and Professor Sycamore looked relieved, just as Alan had earlier. “Although, it is a bit strange. Aren’t skiddo usually good with people? I thought they were docile.”

“Usually, yes,” Professor Sycamore said, “but this particular skiddo is a bit different. We think it has something to do with his previous trainer; he was surrendered to the city as a guide skiddo when he was young, but from the moment he was assigned to a post it became clear he couldn’t handle the crowds in the streets. The problem is, it’s one thing to headbutt one person; it’s another when you’re surrounded by people and can’t figure out where to turn.”

“He was scared,” Alan said. “He’s still young, and since he wasn’t raised to be a guide skiddo from the time he hatched, he didn’t know what to do. He was overwhelmed and he panicked, and the people who run the skiddo service didn’t know what to do since they usually get their skiddo from eggs, rather than trainer surrenders. That only made it worse.”

As much as she hadn’t appreciated being headbutted to the ground earlier, Cosette couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy as she said, “Poor little guy. Is there any chance he could be a guide skiddo once he gets better?”

“Maybe. Hopefully. We’ll see.” Professor Sycamore combed his fingers through his hair. “We’ve at least made enough progress so that he doesn’t headbutt either of us or Sophie anymore, but . . . well, as you can see, strangers are still difficult for him. We’re trying to slowly condition him by bringing people by, but as much as he is partially motivated by anxiety and stress, he also has a stubborn streak. It’s a tricky situation.”

“He apologized to Cosette when I scolded him for attacking her earlier,” Alan said. “So that’s a good sign.”

“It’s a start, certainly,” Professor Sycamore said, “though hopefully we can get him to stop attacking our guests—or new employees, as the case may be—altogether.” He looked back at Cosette, though, smiling, and Cosette felt her nerves spike again. “With that said, I believe I owe you an apology for making you wait. I’m very sorry about that, Cosette. But if you’re ready, I have your paperwork ready to go inside, so we can go ahead and get started.

Cosette bobbed her head in a sharp nodded. “Yes, I’m ready to go.”

“Excellent,” Professor Sycamore said, and he clapped his hands together as he turned to Alan. “Alan, if you aren’t in the middle of something else, Sophie picked up where I left off on tablet translations. She’s working in the research room; could you go and lend her a hand?”

“Sure,” Alan said, and Professor Sycamore beamed at him. It struck Cosette, then, that the two of them looked somewhat similar, and she wondered if perhaps they were related. Then again, Alan did call Professor Sycamore ‘Professor,’ so she figured it was probably just her imagination. (And even if it wasn’t, it was her first day. It probably wasn’t very smart to grill Alan about his family on her first day.) Alan looked back over at her, and raised his hand in a little wave. “See you around.”

“Yeah,” Cosette said, and she waved back. Alan grinned, and Cosette couldn’t help but giggle a little bit herself. It felt silly to wave to him when they were going to be working in the same building together, but there they were. “See you.”

Alan turned back to head into the lab, Lizardon’s tail flame trailing smoke behind them, and once Alan was inside, Professor Sycamore turned back to Cosette.

“If nothing else, it sounds like you’ve had an eventful first day already,” he said, and he laughed a little. “Welcome to the Lumiose Pokémon Lab, Cosette.”

Despite her nerves, Cosette returned his smile. “Thank you, Professor Sycamore,” she said. “I’m glad to be here.”


End file.
